Nowadays, a company that wants to offer a product such as a suitcase, a trunk, or other type of transportable container, and that wants to keep up with the competition in a market which is increasingly competitive, must be capable of providing a high degree of customization for objects that, in and of themselves, already have shapes and sizes that may be very different.
The plurality of formats to be handled that derives from this fact often makes it preferable to use processes of production and assembly in which some or all of the phases of such production process, as well as the phases of handling and movement of the products, are performed by a skilled operator.
Considering professional briefcases, for example, these are typically comprised of two half-shells, made of plastics and mutually articulated.
The associated production process is assigned to an operator who manually assembles the two half-shells and fits any additional elements.
Owing to the variability of the formats to be handled, the transfer and movement of the products, as well as the transfer and movement of the half-shells, are delegated to the operator, since it is not possible to define an automated process due to such a plurality of formats to be handled.
Such a solution is not, however, without drawbacks.
It appears evident that the necessity of employing a human operator involves a significant rise in production costs.
In addition, employing a human operator means that it is impossible to significantly reduce the time needed to execute the production phases performed by such operator, except by employing an excessively high (and economically unacceptable) number of operators.